Second time lucky?

 


I wrote an anguished post this morning, it must have been so painful that it has done the decent thing and ...disappeared! However, I will not be deterred, this thing does not know stubborn until it has crossed my path!!

(Well stubborn and ignorant of things techie and blogs. I have been helped and sorted out. I will go and eat humble pie with a large glass of red wine!)

Lost in the ether?

I wrote an anguished post this morning, it must have been so painful that it has done the decent thing and ...disappeared! However, I will not be deterred, this thing does not know stubborn until it has crossed my path!!

A few weeks ago I went walking in Derbyshire, walking could be a euphemism for paddling in cow muck!! Even while living on a farm, I did not achieve the depth and quality of sludge that we experienced that week-end! A few days later Shirley rang and asked me if I had cleaned my boots, errh no was my embarrassed answer. (I hate house work, and this sounds remarkable like displaced cleaning, my least favourite activity.)
So today, I have dry scrubbed my boots, the 'ordure' has been removed and I am ready for next week-end's mystery walk in Leicester. We meet on the race course and aim for a local pub for lunch. This is the man who led us in Derbyshire, supposedly to a pub, but lunch was a longer way away than we imagined, I hope he is kinder next week-end.

So please note, I have cleaned my boots - this is an official first for me!! Please circle today in red on your calenday, if I can find mine, I will be doing exactly that!

(I have found this post and am going to try again!!

Bingo!!

Keep fit.
Huh, what a misnomer that is. I have never really been athletically fit, even in the days at school when I was in the athletics team and in winter, played a ferocious game of hockey. I was always one who puffed and panted a lot. On a walking trip to the Cevennes, I brought up the rear every time, usually rather red in the face and doing the said puffing billy act.

So, I have already admitted to joining a gym, and the reason? Well, I wish to leave the rather select membership of the Puffin Bills. I am already into my second phase of exercises, new machines and longer, more strenuous activities. Only now, do I realise, that some of them could be likened to torture machines, and I am paying to do this!!!

Have you ever reached up to the top of the door frame and pulled yourself up on it? Well, if you could, I am impressed. Me?Never achieved that little activity. Up until now and the new machine.... I have to kneel down and then pull myself up against a weighted spring in five diferent ways, none of this hang onto the doorway simplicity, the grips have to be adhered to. So far, I am the only person that I have heard swearing at the machine, quietly mind you, but with a definite blue tinge to the air surrounding it. The next question is, why am I doing these exercises anyway? Ah, well, just think of those flaps at the back of your arms when you play bingo.

But I don't play bingo.....

There!!

I have altered the setting for comments - let's see if this works!

This is for you DLG!

And I cannot find the page online...... XXXXXX! In the colour magazine of The Times today, there are two, yes TWO pages of leopard print shoes. Of course, Manola is there together with Lulu, French Sole, Kate Kuba, Hobbs and Christian Louboutin.

Do any of you do this?

Hide from the reality of life - not open the bills, in fact any post. Spend the time reading silly books instead of doing the things that really need doing? Avoid the housework?
Well, I have been doing that all half term. Will someone please sort me out?

Cox's Orange Pippins

I picked the crop of Cox's apples from my tree today, it is a thrill to harvest something from the garden, even more so when there is enough to share with my neighbours.

Delicious!

I stayed with my daughter and her boyfriend in Pershore last night; it was Tim's birthday recently, so we went out to celebrate at the new restaurant that had opened in town. Livvy went in at lunch time to book a table, she sorted out her veggie meal and we ordered a fish hors d'oeuvre, Tim had sirloin steak which he drooled over. I decided upon the loin of pork which was delish!! The veg were cooked beautifully too and the Aussie wine was superb. Then we had puddings, cos, well it would have been awful if we got an attack of the 'what ifs' on the way home. You know, what if that lime pudding was so wonderful that I want to try making it at home? That kind of question that really niggles at you in the middle of the night!!
All the food was excellent, the presentation on a par and they used some individually designed plates and bowls - a feast for the eye as well as the waist-line!
An interesting situation arose when reading the menu, the dyslexic one amongst us questioned a dish which seemed not to make sense, and it didn't - the punctuation was all to pot! I was fascinated that he was the one to pick this up, not me - the school teacher, it made a tremendous difference to the dishes though! www.belle-house.co.uk is the site, but it is not working at the moment of posting, however, i am in a positive mood and posting it anyway!

AAAAARGH, I've done it again - on a whim!!!
Why am I so naive as to expect things to work easily?? I have changed the layout and lost all the comments, drat. Let's see if the innocent looking tick box works and they come back.

Ooooops, lost my comments!
Oh dear, I wonder where they have gone?

Let's try again!
There should be another holiday photo arriving here, I've tried to make it smaller so that it doesn't take all day to download!

Well, I've done it now!!
The broadband connection makes connective life so much easier! To do what you might well ask, well...
I am not sure about the sense of this, but I have posted my draft proposal for the MA disseration, a truly terrifying experience for me. I have not done a degree course so this academic work is new to me and also I am not exactly at the beginning of my career!
The course is online, so we post our efforts for everyone to see!! YIKES, that is terrifying. The others are all used to FE work and educational lingo at that level, I can throw around things like complex sentences, clauses etc, but that's not really on the same level.
I wanted to add a little note asking them to be kind to me, cos I'm really an idiot to be even trying this, but I chickened out of that too. So within the last 10 minutes I have done the bravest thing in months. Believe me, I am almost shaking at the keyboard!
Now I have no excuse for the mess that is my kitchen and bedroom, so away from this machine and off to the piles!
Oh, its tea time, so a cup of tea first, no cakes cos I am trying hard to lower my BMI, then I will tidy - honest!
I'll tell you about the newest torture machine at the gym tomorrow!

Another WOW moment in my life!
Broadband has entered my personal life. YEAH!!!! It took a lot of sorting - passwords and account names not being sent to me in time before accounts were shut down etc. Doesn't help - Virgin, sort your act out!!
However, I now have it and I am a happy bunny. I can get into people's sites so quickly, the comments load in seconds and it is ssooooo easy.
Perhaps I should now try some more pickies as they took long time to sort out.
Play it safe though first, try the text!!

How good is that!
I dashed home early tonight to have a phone tutorial about my proposal, which went quite well.The main idea is acceptable, so now I have to tighten up all the research methodology etc so that it looks as if I know exactly what I want to do. After that I went into the gym to continue the good woork that the last two months have been doing. I sometimes listen to music there, at other times I think, then there are the times when I am in so much puffy agony that existence is an achievement!
Well tonight I saw a young woman there who I used to live next door to , taught when she was 7-9 and had stayed my daughter's best friend. Livvy (this is my daughter)is very excited because she is going to be the athlete's bridesmaid next year, so I talked to her (bride) about it all while she was cycling away. It was lovely to natter and when I left I just felt incredibly pleased that things are turning out so well for them both and I hope that their partnerships work out better than mine did in the end. I think they will - they all seem to be thinking far more about the working of the partnership than I ever did. So, hooray for the 20's generation and good luck to them!

I apologise in advance,
This is it - I have started writing the draft proposal for my thesis, so future blogs may well be rather boring as far as content goes. I hope I won't lose the natural style and go all educational, but I am determined to give this a go. Working with mPowerNet allowed me the luxury of completing four modules, so now I am going for the last one. To be honest I am terrified as this really will sort out out the 'men from the boys' if you understand what I mean! I am hoping that there is a hidden reserve of academic work and achievement lurking somewhere in my body, previous attempts to use it have not always been successful as other distractions always proved to be too powerful! (I spent valuable revision time when taking my A levels making hay for some friends in Devon..) O Levels had other distractions and I seem to remember the seaside was quite a lure when I was at college. As they say, I have the breaking power of a KitKat!!
So, bear with me, I shall go off gallivanting once a month, but I may be writing rather worse gibberish than usual in beween!

Wow - what a wonderful country we live in!
This week-end has seen me traipsing up hills and down dales in Derbyshire in the company of a group of like minded slightly mad people, it has been such fun! We stayed in the Youth Hostel in Hartington - a very up market place for hostels.
They serve your meals and there are none of the old fashioned jobs to do (things are just not the same nowadays - where's the hardship in this!!!)
Hartington Hall

The town is very pituresque, especially in the day time, however even the pitch dark could not prevent us venturing out to the nearest pub for a social meetup and drink. Then on Saturday we went on various walks through the countryside, yours truly managed about 9 miles without sounding like the puffing billy of past.
Back to the hostel, a shower and then a revenge game of scrabble. Last time we played, Shirley thrashed me totally, so I had to pull out all the stops and regain the Queen of Scrabble crown. This was achieved with no mean score and much hilarity. Today we had a gentle stroll along the Dovedale valley which is extremely popular but still one of the loveliest places in England.
A fantastic week-end and now I have to get down to writing a proposal for my dissertation. Ouch!

Ugh...
I took my class on a school trip yesterday to Shrewsbury Abbey. We had a wonderful time, except when one child threw up in the aisle, then outside the main entrance and finally in the drain. He was not a happy chappy...
On the journey home, the police enlivened things by stopping us to check the driver's tachograph, then the poor child threw up again.
I think all of us went home and had a good wash to get rid of the smell, I just hope the poor boy is getting better!

After three everybody!!!
Tim, you are wonderful!!
He has sorted out my problems - well those with the shutting down of the internet on my computer, let's be realistic here!! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can now read the comments and put some in on other pages!!
The prognosis was: I had a little worm, the Yahoo update did not do me any good, nor did the over zealous pop-up blocker. What chance was there for little innocent ol' me?
That's what I love about computers, they suddenly take it into their own hands to become over efficient or downright sloppy about letting in bugs. When will they develop this thinking machine?

HELP! WHAT HAVE I DONE NOW???
The WWW has obviously decided that I am not one of its favourite people. I love reading my friends' and firend's blog, even better is leaving a comment for them. So why when I click on the hyperlink does the system now cut me off from any internet connection? It shuts everything down, ZAP! Kersnip! Vamoosh! NO more....
Does any expert out there know how I managed to achieve this spectacular feat? Was it downloading the upgrade of Yahoo Messenger?
Did I write a nasty comment somewhere? Please help a deprived (NO, not depraved) commenter who is having severe withdrawal (is that how you spell that word?!)symptoms!

An Englishman's home...
Only this time it was a queen's home - after she had killed her husband who just happened to be the King of Englad. Her son was none too impressed and so kept her imprisoned in this castle for thirty years. And this week's question is - guess the queen, 'cos I've forgotten!! The clue is the 13/14th century.

This is the keep where she spent most of her time. A wonderful hall was available for her and her ladies, the local cleric was there to help her with spiritual matters and she had many visits from her son.


THe old church was vandalised for building materials by the locals - does anything ever change?!